Author: Patrick Killeen

JPMorgan Chase will retire the Nutmeg brand this November as it launches J.P. Morgan Personal Investing, a new digital wealth and investment service for UK retail customers.

The move brings to an end more than a decade of the Nutmeg name in the UK market, which was among the first digital-first wealth managers in the UK and went on to become the country’s largest robo-adviser. 

The US banking giant acquired the company in 2021 as part of its push into UK consumer finance, alongside the launch of Chase UK.

Since the takeover, Nutmeg has more than doubled its assets under management from £3.5 billion to £8.5bn and grown its customer base from 140,000 to more than 265,000.

J.P. Morgan Personal Investing will carry over the London-based company’s existing services, while adding new features designed to broaden its appeal. 

Author: Patrick Killeen

Concept Ventures has closed an oversubscribed £65 million Fund II, cementing its status as Europe’s largest dedicated pre-seed fund.

The London-based VC, which launched its first institutionally-backed fund of £48m in 2022, now manages $200m in assets.

Its debut fund is a top 1% performer for its vintage globally, with portfolio startups raising more than $450m to date.

Backing for Fund II came primarily from the US, with 80% of institutional LPs based there.

Investors include Aldea Ventures, Top Tier Capital Partners, Marktlink Capital, Dominus and Granite Capital Management, alongside one of the world’s largest US investment banks and a leading charitable trust.

Author: Patrick Killeen

A £1 million government programme is launching in an attempt to help tech startups and scaleups thrive outside London, with new projects set to boost founders and ecosystems across the UK.

The Regional Tech Booster initiative, delivered in partnership with UK Tech Cluster Group, will fund 12 local projects offering early-stage businesses targeted training, expert mentoring, networking opportunities and support to scale.

Announced in July with the goal of making sure the benefits of the UK’s tech sector are felt nationwide, the projects span every corner of the UK.

The programme will run pilots through 2026, each designed to deliver measurable local impact by supporting at least 30 tech businesses over six months.

Spotify founder Daniel Ek is stepping down as CEO of the music streaming behemoth and will become its executive chair.

Based in Stockholm, Sweden, Spotify said chief product and technology officer Gustav Söderström and chief business officer Alex Norström will become co-CEOs.

Currently co-presidents, the transition will take place at the beginning of 2026.

“This change simply matches titles to how we already operate,” said Ek, who said his new role will see him focus on Spotify’s “long arc” and remain fully involved in the business.

Spotify has more than 700 million subscribers and a library of more than 100m songs, 7m podcast titles and 350,000 audiobooks.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

TruSpine Technologies Plc has delayed the completion and publication of its audited accounts for the year to 29th March 2025 – and trading in its shares has been suspended temporarily as a result.

Based at London Gatwick, the medical device company is focused on the spinal stabilisation market. It is aiming to commercialise Cervi-LOK, a screw-free spinal stabilisation system which aims to minimise the risk of vertebral artery injury which can cause brainstem stroke or nerve root and spinal cord injury.

However, supply chain issues and external issues around testing delayed expected FDA clearance in the United States in 2022, leaving it seeking funding to see it through its FDA submission. Its CEO resigned last year.

“The company anticipates that it will be in a position to publish its final results shortly, following which trading in its shares will be restored. A further announcement will be made in due course,” it said in a notice to the London Stock Exchange.

IntelliAM AI plc, listed on the Aquis Exchange, has announced a major expansion of its commercial partnership with Hovis.

The software company, which is transforming productivity in the manufacturing industry through artificial intelligence and machine learning, secured the original contract last year to deliver reliability consultancy services across three key sites.

Hovis has now awarded IntelliAM a substantially expanded contract which represents a ninefold increase on the original agreement. The expanded engagement will see full deployment of the IntelliAM AI platform across multiple manufacturing sites; integration of its smart sensor interfaces across production lines; and ongoing consultancy services to drive measurable gains in reliability, productivity and asset availability.

The University of Lancashire has bolstered its Business School with three new appointments to support students and regional business growth.

Robert Binns has joined as a professor in practice, Miranda Barker OBE as an honorary professor and Marcello Trovati as professor of digital transformation.

Dean Steven Rhoden said the trio’s expertise in entrepreneurship, business leadership and AI reflects the university’s ambition to drive innovation and digital transformation across Lancashire.

Author: Cody Barrow , CEO, EclecticIQ

Harrods’ second breach in six months should remove any illusion of safety through prestige.

The retailer may not be engaging with the attacker, but cyber criminals are certainly engaging with them and the brand is paying the price.

This incident wasn’t a direct hit, but a reminder that supply chains are now battlegrounds. Customer data, loyalty tags, and contact info are enough to launch highly convincing scams and cause long-term damage to trust.

Once again, attackers didn’t need to storm the front door when a back entrance was wide open.

The alarm has been ringing for years. What’s changed is the cost of ignoring it – regulatory fines that hit the bottom line, customer defection that damages valuation, and personal board-level accountability that follows executives home.

The question isn’t whether to act, it’s whether you act now or after your brand takes the hit.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Fuse Energy has become one of Europe’s fastest-growing startups by tackling the problem of soaring energy bills.

Founded in 2022 by ex-Revolut executives Alan Chang and Charles Orr, the London company has surged past $300 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) while helping more than 150,000 households cut their bills by up to £200 a year.

To date, it has raised $100m, including a recent $10m round, and it is planning European expansion as well as further innovation in its energy stack.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Royal Mail’s parent company has acquired a minority stake in delivery network Collect+ for £43.9 million, leading to a rocketing share price for owner PayPoint.

PayPoint set up Collect+ as a joint venture with Yodel in 2009. It would buy Yodel’s stake for just £6m in 2020.

Now International Distribution Services (IDS), owner of Royal Mail, has agreed a £43.9m deal for a 49% stake in the business, valuing Collect+ at £90m. PayPoint owns the other 51% following the deal.

PayPoint’s share price has increased by nearly 10% since trading opened this morning.

Risers:

Paypoint PLC – +9.94%

Kainos Group PLC – +3.64%

Rentokil Initial PLC – +3.41%

Molten Ventures PLC – + 3.15%

Baltic Classifieds Group PLC – + 2.84%

Fallers:

BT Group PLC – -2.77%

Wizz Air Holdings PLC  – -2.23%

Investec PLC – -2.20%

Anglo-Eastern Plantations PLC – -1.79%

Pantheon Infrastructure PLC – -1.33%

Digital Catapult has invested £400,000 in DeepTech startup Immersely to expand across the UK’s creative industries.

Immersely says its tool – which uses deep machine learning and anonymised biometric data such as heart rate, stress levels, and engagement patterns, to determine how video game players emotionally respond to the content they experience – could redefine the creative economy and fuel a steady pipeline of compelling new content, particularly in the design and development of video games.

By applying emotional intelligence, the system identifies which elements enhance player enjoyment and which diminish engagement, providing valuable insights for future game design and development. This helps game developers and studios to predict how a game will perform before release and deliver real-time, adaptive content as players interact with the game.

NoBACZ Healthcare, a University of Cambridge spinout developing novel products that change the way lesions and wounds are treated in livestock and horses, has raised a £4.8m funding round led by The Yield Lab.

Wounds on livestock and horses are traditionally treated with antibiotics and then covered with cloth bandages; however, this approach is ineffective as it can lead to infection risks. NoBACZ has created a flexible and waterproof coating that can be applied as a gel, dip or spray. Unlike cloth bandages, it creates an instant protective barrier that seals out bacteria, allowing lesions to heal without the risk of infection.

The investment will be used to finalise its new pipeline of products and accelerate the commercialisation and global distribution of its existing products.

Maven Capital Partners has provided Shawpak Limited with a £500,000 funding package through the British Business Bank’s Midlands Engine Investment Fund II.

The investment will support Shawpak’s move to a larger, modern facility in Derby, enabling the business to expand production capacity, build and test bigger machines, and scale its service and spares operations.

Founded in 2013, Shawpak is a UK manufacturer of specialist packaging machinery for the medical sector. Its rotary thermoforming technology provides a compact and efficient alternative to traditional machines and is now used by major medical device manufacturers worldwide.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Online retail giant ASOS has seen its share price drop by almost 9% since trading opened this morning.

It comes after the company notified the London Stock Exchange of its annual results, reporting a rise in profits in the last financial year despite a fall in sales.

The company stressed its progress in cutting costs and clearing stock even as revenues slipped. However profit came in at the lower end of the expected range, it said.

Its share price now sits at 267p at the time of writing, 8.9% down on the 293p it sat at when markets closed yesterday and 39% down on 436.2p, where it was at the start of the year.

Galytix has teamed up with PwC to modernise the Global Emerging Markets Risk Database (GEMs), which holds 40 years of credit risk data from 29 development banks and institutions.

The goal is to make the huge dataset easier to use so investors can better understand the risks and opportunities in emerging markets.

The London-based firm, which builds AI tools to help banks and insurers turn complex financial data into clear insights, will add its CreditX AI Agent, which is said to be able to cut routine credit analysis work from 30 hours to 30 minutes while ensuring accuracy and transparency.

The project supports the G20’s call for clearer data to encourage more private investment into developing economies.

Notion Capital has closed a new £97 million growth fund, Notion Capital Opportunities III, to back its strongest portfolio companies and selected external growth-stage businesses.

The fund, which has already invested in Aikido, Upvest, Resistant AI, Nelly and Kraken Technology Group, is expected to make around a dozen core investments.

The London-based venture capital firm has also announced the hire of Jess Bartos, formerly of Salesforce Ventures, as its first external partner to help drive the strategy alongside partner Stephanie Opdam.

A listed Sheffield firm creating technologies that reduce the impact of clothing on the planet says it has agreements in place across the globe.

Xeros Technology Group plc said its half-year results show the first sales from its denim processing partner Yilmak following an agreement with prominent Pakistan-based manufacturer Ambition Apparel, which produces over nine million pairs of jeans a year.

There are also new agreements across Europe and China, the latter for its microfibre filter.

Revenue was £65,000, down from £79,000 in the prior year, as ‘delays pushed some income into the second half’. Adjusted EBITDA loss fell to £1.6m (H1 24: £2.4m), reflecting lower ongoing costs.

Author: Patrick Killeen

Steven Bartlett has told Press Publish NYC that he built Diary of a CEO into one of the world’s biggest podcasts by embracing failure as a competitive advantage.

The SocialChain co-founder revealed his dedicated ‘failure team’, tasked with running rapid experiments, and explained how pre-watch testing helps his team cut guesswork from content decisions.

Bartlett also discussed how AI is already reshaping podcasting, with his team producing AI-generated episodes that are said to be indistinguishable from human shows in retention data.

Despite turning down offers worth hundreds of millions, he said his priority remains creative control, happiness and the freedom to keep innovating.

EMV Capital, the VC investor specialising in high-growth deep tech and life sciences companies, has reported interim results for the six months to 30th June 2025, with revenues of £1.1 million, slightly down from £1.2m a year earlier, and losses reduced to £1.5m from £1.8m.

Total assets grew to £19.7m from £19.5m at the end of FY 2024, though net assets slipped to £13.6m from £14.1m. Cash fell to £0.5m from £1.0m, alongside a reduction in readily realisable securities to £1.0m from £2.5m.

Assets under management remained strong at £104.7m, compared to £106.7m in H1 2024, with £5m syndicated into seven portfolio companies, down from £6.4m into 11 companies.

CEO Dr Ilian Iliev said the group remains focused on expanding its funds practice and delivering shareholder value despite challenging markets.